Daily Devotional • April 3
A Reading from Romans 7:13-25
12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witnesswith our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Meditation
The hope of a Christian is fundamentally eschatological. This can be quite trying for those who do not understand this fact. For many, Christian and non-Christian alike, there is a preference for trying to make “paradise Earth” while still on our earthly pilgrimage. This can exhibit itself as an overconcern for political solutions to spiritual issues. I believe that all people feel the “groaning of creation,” that there is something that has been lost and is seeking to be regained. The earth lacks perfection, not because of its imperfect beginning, but because it was so sorely distorted in the first act of the play. Creation groans and all people feel its groaning, feel the decay, feel the lacking. But the hope of the Christian, the completion, the fulfilling, the silencing of that groaning by being made full, is eschatological.
This does not mean that we don’t endeavor and strive in our earthly work, that we ignore the poor, the widow, and the orphan because “they will be fulfilled in the eschaton.” We do serve them, for there God is, but we also recognize that our Lord was right when he said “the poor will always be with us.” This fact is true because the lacking that we all create will only be filled at the end of things, because earth is not complete without heaven, just as we are not complete without our bridegroom.
We have obtained our “glorious liberty as children of God,” yet our very bodies still groan waiting for their redemption. There is an incompleteness to our present state, not that God is incomplete, but that the work has not yet been completed. We should not be so naive as to think that we can create a new paradise via legislation. Nor should we be so hard-hearted so as to not give our alms and serve the perishing poor. The Christian life is full of tension, full of no’s that are within a larger yes, and certainly our corporal works of mercy live in that tension as well. We work to serve the poor and the orphan and the widow, not that our work is complete, but because it is what God would have us do until that hour when he returns in great glory to complete the work he has begun.
The Rev. Samuel Cripps is the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Wausau, Wisconsin.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
Saint Francis Ministries
The Diocese of Maseno North The Anglican Church of Kenya
The Rev. Samuel Cripps is the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Wausau, Wisconsin.
